Silenced by the Storm:

A Voice Against the Storm:

Yanar Mohammed and Defense of Iraqi’s Women’s Rights

by robin a. cryderman

On March 10th, an amazing Iraqi woman activist spoke at the University of Victoria. Two days previously, she was the featured speaker at International Women’s Day events in Vancouver.

Yanar’s talk was indeed inspiring and amazing in its stark honesty. And I hope, with this article, to share with you what Iraqi activists are accomplishing in Northern Iraq, under conditions we can not even imagine. This is a story Canadians do not know. The story I heard on March 10 was a story of impossible courage under horrendous conditions, a story of one woman’s maternal line fighting for women’s equality, exemplifying three generations of Iraqi women’s struggles and suffering; all of this occurring while the world looks on. Now that the so-called “War Against Iraq” is a reality, despite global protests, we will need all the stories like this available to strengthen our resolve to never stop fighting for global equality for women.

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Born in 1960, in Baghdad during turbulent political times, Yanar Mohammed spent many years under the Baath regime dictatorship. She witnessed the eighties’ war with Iran, the invasion Kuwait, the catastrophic “Desert Storm,” and the economic sanctions that followed. She graduated from Baghdad University in 1984, obtaining a Master’s degree in Architecture in 1993. She then left Iraq on a long trip that ended in Canada in 1995.

Once in Toronto, Yanar met radical Iraqi women and set up a committee, Defense of Iraqi Women’s Rights (DIWR), an organization that strives towards improving the status of millions of Iraqi women through active involvement in the political debate over Iraq’s future. The DIWR works in collaboration with the Independent Women’s Organization (IWO); they fund a women’s shelter in Northern Iraq and work to change Iraqi civil laws based on Islamic Shari’a that allow honor killings, multiple marriages, and other sexually discriminatory laws and practices.

Yanar was the Coordinator DIWR in 1998, 1999 and 2002, and has worked with the

Canadian Arab Federation. She was one of the main organizers of Toronto’s 1999 IWD and the IWD Book Fair, as is a key speaker on behalf of Iraqi women in Canada. She has written for the Iraqi opposition newspapers, the Worker-Communist, Anti-Sanctions, the Al-Ufuk and Forward (1998-2002). She has also been featured in the CBC documentary for The National: Divided Opposition (2002), and in an article in The Toronto Star, “War Protester Talking from Heart” (17 November 2002). Although Yanar’s main area is women’s rights, she is an accomplished artist, designing and sculpting large ceramic murals, one of which graces the entrance at the Canadian Arab Federation building in Toronto.

Yanar Mohammed: Defense of Iraqi Women’s Rights

“I’m very happy to be here in Victoria, and I’ve heard a lot about the women’s movement on this side of Canada. It’s been progressive; it’s been pro universal rights; it’s supporting the immigrant women against the their local issues, local as in the other side of the world.... And of course I’m meeting you at very dark times. These times are one of the darkest that the Iraqi people are going through. A war that is illegitimate, unjustified and unnecessary is being launched at these Iraqi people. It affects all Iraqi women. It will be catastrophic.

I was there at the last war, and I come here as an eyewitness. It’s not only the terror of the warheads, the bombing; it’s not only the miserable situations we went through after the bombing. The economic sanctions have killed 1.5 million Iraqi’s. Half a million Iraqi women have cried for years and years over their dying babies, dying because of the economic sanctions imposed by a UN resolution. Can you imagine the United Nations, who have been made the first place to achieve peace and stability in the world? They make resolutions that kill millions of innocent victims all around the world. That I have witnessed, and I have to admit, it was the economic sanctions that made me leave that country. I could not feed my son properly any more. There was no milk around. Women’s situation was terrible ... and of course the bombing did not stop.

And now we are launching a very big war. Avery big war. And again I tell you; the bombing has not stopped until this very day. It’s been all over Iraq, from north to south Some of you have asked me, what will be the effects on women of this war on Iraq? ... I will go back to the linkage Robin started between the International Women’s Day movement and the anti-war movement. This war will be catastrophic on the women of Iraq. There will be immediate effects at the short term. UN reports say half a million people will be killed in the first few days of the war. That has been planned. There have been 3000 air raids that have been planned within the first two days ... that will paralyze the Iraqi government.

From my memory, when I was in Baghdad, one for those raids killed 450 women and children in the Aamiriya air raid shelter. Some of the women were incinerated next to the wall and have their profiles drawn on the walls of the shelter. They were burnt alive, in that shelter. That was only one shelter. Can you imagine what these air raids will do? What thousands of these air raids will do to the women and children in Baghdad and the other cities of Iraq? The number of casualties will be great. And it will not be an exaggeration if we say that number of victims of the economic sanctions added to the number of the coming casualties, it will be the biggest genocide in modern history. A genocide that has been called different names here in the west.

We hear names such as “liberalization of the people of Iraq,” or “democratization,” establishing democratic relations around the world. How can you establish a democratic system in a place when you have already killed 1.5 million of its’people? When you have bombed them continuously? Where you have made [the] situations of women go down the drain?

Again, I would like to return to the effects on the women of Iraq? The first effect is the death of ½ a million Iraqi people, many of which I would say most of which, will be women and children. As men will be on the front lines, most of the cities’ population will be the vulnerable women and their children. Of course we know that when the bombing starts, it’s not only over people, it’s going to be the infra-structure facilities, for example the electricity and the water pumping stations. Drinking water will not be safe anymore. Can you imagine the results that would happen? Millions of women and children will basically not have good drinking water, which will bring disease all over Iraq. Million of women will have babies that they will not be able to save from diseases that can be cured very easily.

Of course I was there three months ago; I was there in December. Not in central Baghdad under Saddam, but I was in the north of Iraq, that is monitored by the UN. And I saw the results of the last war, the Desert Storm. I was amazed to see the number of people that are still suffering ... the displaced people. They have lived in slums for 12 years now, living in conditions that are un-thought-of when you are living on this side of the world.

I visited this family that had lost two children. They were living in an abandoned building with no handrails on the balconies. The children had fallen off the balconies; they did not have a washroom, and when they built one with their hands, they had to share it with ten families. They were waiting for funds to come from the UN in order to improve their lives, and when these funds came, the local authorities, the PUK and KDP spent them on making projects, housing projects, and gave them to their relatives, to people in the ruling parties.

And of course, the long term effects on the women of Iraq, that people think maybe it’s not the time to talk about, but I disagree with them. This is the time to discuss the future of the women in Iraq. Women’s rights have gone up and down the ladder in the last decades. And they are at their worst positions now. Whenever we thought that we were at the worst position, we found out that there is worse to come yet. Of course, when talking about women’s rights, I would like to ... overview ... how the situation is for women in Iraq, because for many, it will not be clear how it is different from Afghanistan or from other places in the world, or how it can be even related to women’s status here in Canada.

Of the situation of women in the Middle East, the situation in Iraq is thought of as one of modernity. During the 50s and the 60s of the last century, progressive movements were very active in the streets of Iraq. When I say “progressive,” these are movements that have a socialist vision. These are communist movements that believe in equality of men and women. They have proved themselves on the scene, and they have set up a social profile for women that has changed their lives all the around. If I want to make the image simpler for you, I can take a succession of three generations of women.

My grandmother was living in a time when Islam was the guideline in the society. She was married to a mullah by force, and she had to make from that forced marriage five children that she had to take care of all her life. It was a miserable life, and she didn’t know any better. She was praying until the last days of her life. But the second generation, which was my mother’s generation, in the 50s and the 60s when the progressive movements came around, they began to know their rights. At the end of the 50s, there were 45 thousand women in Iraq that were organized within the Women’s League demanding rights and equality. And this in a country that’s supposed to be a third world country where people think there is no movement for women.

This is 1958. 45 thousand women demonstrate in the streets and they asked for their civil rights, and they were able to pressure the government to make some amendments to the civil laws. That changed many laws related to economic rights; for example, inheritance under Islamic Shari’a gives women half what it gives a man, and under Islamic Shari’a also, a woman’s testimony in a court of law is defective. So, two women’s testimony is equivalent to one man’s testimony. And there are many rules such as this in the Shari’a that these women went down the streets and demonstrated, and were able to change. This was a major achievement for us in the last century. In 1958.

The women’s movement in Iraq reached a point where they were they were thought of as a symbol of modernity, of achievement in the Middle East. This is the situation we were in at that time. But, unfortunately, the period that followed was different. In the 60s, the beginning of the 60s, exactly 1963, the Baath regime came to power, which led the way later on to Saddam’s Baath Regime and to dictatorship. This is the Arab Nationalist Party, who, by many references’ explanation, was brought to power by American support, so as to crush progressive movements, mainly communism, in Iraq. The Nationalists support the movement of women in times of hardship; they give women the opportunity to struggle side by side with the men. They give them importance, but the minute they reach to power all those privileges are taken away from the women. They are pushed back to their kitchens. They are forced to stay in there. And their rights are taken from them, little by little.

And as a practical way of looking at that, the Baath regime made amendments to the civil law, and cancelled all the achievements that the women’s movement had done in the 50s. All the achievements I told you about were cancelled. All of them. And the Baath regime is a Nationalist Arab regime, Fascist Nationalist, that prides [itself] on wars for Arab glories. And they pride [themselves] on these glorious wars that achieve for the Arab nation. In that sense, it can be related to what Hitler’s ambitions in ruling the world. The Baath regime began to take us to these wars. Saddam began his war against Iran in which 1 million people were killed. Hundreds of thousands of women were widowed. The economy went down, and the widows of course did not have any source of income. When the economy went down, the regime, in an attempt to solve the economic crisis directed a heavy strike to women; there were mass lay-offs in the public sector, and they were mostly against women. So all of a sudden women find themselves jobless, no social insurance, no income, and widowed. And on top of that, their rights, all the rights that they had fought for, had been taken away from them. So those were the 80s for the women in Iraq.

And of course that’s not the whole story. The 80s had other parts to it, other stories to tell. The Nationalist regime, the Baath regime, who were assumed to be a factor of stability in the area.... And these are not my words, these are the words of the American officials in the time of Ronald Regan, when the biggest supporter of Iraq was Donald Rumsfeld. He described Iraq as a factor of stability in the area, and an ally to depend on. When Saadam launched his ethnic cleansing war against the Kurds in the North, when he killed 5000, he gassed 5000 people in Halabcha, that was one year before this announcement of the American government: “He is a factor of stability in the area.”

In 1988, Saadam has killed 180,000 Kurds in the North ... another ethnic cleansing campaign, and still this was not reason enough for the US government to turn against him. They still thought he was a factor of stability in the area, and an ally to rely on. They were not against him. But it is proven to us that they were against the Iraqi people, and they put their hands in the hands of any, any system that would oppress and kill the Iraqi people. One of the turning points, was after the Iraq-Iran War, when Saadam had decided to invade Kuwait.

I’d like to tell you this short story of my being there. I [had] artwork to do. I do some sculpture work from time to time, and I had a deadline to finish this mural. The day is August the 1st I am talking about; it was in the evening that the war was launched against Kuwait. And it was not a war, it was an invasion. We had no idea that there would be an invasion. The people of Iraq did not know anything about it. It’s a bloody dictator we are talking about, this Saddam; he would not ask anyone before launching these attacks. That evening I was working on my art, and I was used to having Radio Kuwait on, because they have nice shows on. And all of a sudden, I turned the radio on, and there was no radio station any more. Kuwait did not have a radio any more. I was wondering what the reason is, but looking at the street we saw all the military aspect on the street, and everybody was wondering: is it possible that we are going to war again?

The reason I am telling you this story is that the people had no idea of this war, of this attack on Kuwait. And after which the Alliance launched a devastating war against the people of Iraq. And I say against the people of Iraq, because after the war was finished, that Desert Storm, Saddam was still in power. He was more powerful than before, and all the result for that Desert Storm was 200 thousand Iraqis killed. I would say one third of this number was women and children that were killed in what was the genocide of the Desert Storm.

When we hear about the pretexts for this coming war, the weapons of mass destruction, we also have stories to tell about that. During the Desert Storm, we were bombed by missiles covered with depleted uranium as their shells. I’m sure many of you have heard what depleted uranium does. Once it’s fragmented and powdered, and it’s in the air, it’s there to stay. Doesn’t dissolve. Doesn’t go anywhere. We had to breathe those particles all around us , and as a result of that, diseases of cancer, for example of breast cancer, went tenfold up. In every family, we’ve heard of many cases of cancer. In my family there was no history of cancer, and all of a sudden we began to hear uncles, and young ones getting and dying of cancer. And this is the weapon of mass destruction that the media does not like to talk about. Children dying by leukemia, blood cancer, and the cure is not there because under economic sanctions these medicines can be of dual use. In other words, the medicine can be used to produce chemical gas that is used by the Baath Regime. That is why the medicine is not imported.

So babies under five years old are left to die under leukemia because the medicine cannot be imported. This is what economic sanctions are about: weakening the people of Iraq. Committing the biggest genocide in ... modern history, and the end result, which is most important for the people of Iraq, we were rendered helpless, so weak, that we were unable to move about changing that regime, about toppling Saddam Hussein. And the US with the UN insisted to keep the economic sanctions twelve years long.

Unjustified? I would say unnecessary? Unnecessary is very much an understatement. These economic sanctions were absolutely the biggest genocide in modern history. They were the biggest blow to the Iraqi people.

I would like to go back here to the women’s movements. I would still say that in spite of all the strikes the Iraqi people received, still the Iraqi women in the area are considered to be a symbol of modernity. They are educated women. In the 80s, their literacy rates have gone down to 19%, which is unprecedented in the area. And 40% of the labour force in the public sector were women. I bring up this issue in answer to myth number one,the myth that is spread out in the western world that Iraq is a Muslim society, where women’s rights are inapplicable or unachievable because they contradict with the Muslim tradition, and they are against the religion. So women’s rights are not for that part of the world. All the numbers mentioned above and the modern history of our protests gives the full answer to that myth

And they even use this information for the future scenarios of Iraq. The scenarios that are adopted by the Iraqi opposition. These are pro-American Iraqi oppositionwho have come up with an agenda determining that the official religion of the state is Islam. Once they release this statement, it means that the civil laws can not contradict the Islamic Shari’a. It means women are given an inferior status than under the civil law; it means that equality is a dream that Iraqi women should not be thinking of.

Myth number one, that Iraqi society is a Muslim society; that we do not accept. When we have community debates, when we discuss Iraq’s future, that is a statement that we do not accept. My group of women, Defense of Iraqi Women’s Rights, plans for a future of equality in Iraq, that adopts full equality of men and women, and a secular government that adopts civil liberties. And of course we have a socialist vision, under which we think is the only way to achieve full equality for women from day number one, under the constitution. A full equality that we do not have to suffer tens of years in order to achieve.

I talked to you about the Baath Nationalist regime that was in power, that is still in power. In the west they like to call it Saddam, and they try to make it one single person, a dictator, a bloody dictator, and they justify all the wars because of having that dictator who should not stay. But we do not accept this. This is a Nationalist, Fascist regime that makes us go into wars and causes the dissolution of women’s movements. And they wrote about a women’s movement that is led by the government, the General Union for Women of Iraq. And I will tell you in a few minutes of the role of this women’s movement, what it did to the women of Iraq.

In the year 2000, there was mass killing of the women of Iraq, organized killing, that [targeted] the lives of two hundred women in the cities of Baghdad and Mosul. The General Union for Women of Iraq were asked to present a list of “honourless” women to the government. In other words, prostitutes who had no other choice but to sell their bodies in order to make a living, to feed their children. The General Union for Women of Iraq were asked to present a list to the police, and the presenters of the Baath party went to the houses of these women, collected them, and on the streets, they killed them in a very ugly killing that I will have to explain to you now. They beheaded them. They made them naked, and hung them upside down in front of their houses as an example for the society that these honourless women are against tradition, are against Islam.

In other words this was a campaign of Islamization of Iraq, which Saddam and his party decided to go into in the decade of the 90s. This first step was to change the Iraqi’s lives, to write on it Allah Aqqbar, which means God is Great. Of course I would like to clarify that we think that religion is a personal matter, and there should be freedom of religion and atheism. But when religion is used to chop off women’s heads, when it turns into political parties that try to reach to power and keep half the population oppressed--that is what we are against. We call it Political Islam, and this Political Islam has played a very criminal role in the decade of the 90s. The peak of that criminal time was September the 11th. All the world could see the terrorism that they could brag about to the world. Saddam now is trying to put his hands in the hands of Political Islam by changing the flag of Iraq, and writing that statement that clarifies the coalition, that suspicious coalition with Political Islam.

And secondly, what I saw when I went to Iraq, turning the TV and the media on, I was very surprised to see how much air time was given to religious programs. There it was clear it was used to brainwash all people into a state of sedation. Not to think of their rights anymore. Not to think of how to overthrow them anymore.

So try to think of the formula this way. Economic sanctions that keep the Iraqi family fed only for 20 days a month, and fed in a very poor way. Media that brainwashes you into praying five times a day, into thanking God because you are alive. Try to think of the Iraqi people living in this situation. Is this a situation where they can take care of their own lives? Where they can topple Saddam Hussein? No. They cannot. The only solution is to lift the economic sanctions.

And I find it hard, to convince myself, that it needs to be explained to people why the economic sanctions, the resolutions and this killing. 5000 babies a month. 5000 thousand innocent babies, not human beings who have made any concepts, any political concepts yet, to be punished for. These economic sanctions need to be lifted immediately, unconditionally. Saddam needs to be kept under political isolation. Iraqi people need to be given time to give a normal life, and they will overthrow Saddam Hussein. This is the scenario that we see as credible. An honorable solution for all the world to support.

I was very surprised to hear our prime minister’s Chretien’s remarks, in the last week. It started with this trip to Mexico, when he began to withdraw from his position of full support for an American war launched against Iraq. He began to ask questions of which country is going to be next on the list. What I need from Canadian people, the first thing that I ask for from everybody is to talk to Members of Parliament, to say no to this war, whether there is a UN resolution or not. They should say no to this war. They should work actively against it. This is everything Canada government has stood for, achieving peace around the world. Protecting people from crimes, from genocide; we were given protection here. We really insist that our people stay safe too.

I would like to talk about honor killings in Iraq. Of course, when we are in an anti-war period, when millions of people are being killed, we do not prioritize women’s rights. But our long term goal is that women should not be killed for any reasons like honor, in Iraq. Honor killings are supported by the idea and the concept that under religious settings such as Muslim society, any relationships outside marriage are not allowed. Unallowed love has to be punished.

Shari’a says stoning; Koran says lashing. And the end result is killing, death for women. And in male dominated societies, it’s only the women that get it. The Koran says that adulterers should be punished, men and women, but then again I am not defending this idea because it’s inhuman against men and women. My group of women are do not indulge in dividing the society into two parts that work against each other, men and women. We think that women-hatred is a societal disease that needs to be worked against by men and women. Many of our supporters are men. And we reach to the point where we need to put our hands in the hands of the Iraqi opposition that forward the rights of women at the top of their agenda. And in Iraq’s case the only political group that has proved that position so far so far is the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, which has become very popular in the north of Iraq.

And again I would like to refer again to honor killings. Americans say that they are working for the democratization of Iraq, for establishing democratic systems. But if we look at the north of Iraq that has been liberated from Saddam Hussein, and that has been monitored by the US, and by the UN organizations, I will tell you what does not get mentioned in the media. In the 90s, in that part of Iraq, 5000 women died because of honour killings. All of these killings were organized by the ruling parties, the Kurdish ruling parties. I have friends that tell me stories, terrible stories, about that. My friend ... tells me that in her city authorities knock on the doors; they ask this family and that family that they have to kill their daughters, because they are honourless, because they are having affairs, relationships. Even falling in love is enough reason for a woman to be killed.

Honor killings were administered by the ruling parties, and unfortunately they say that they have women’s groups, these ruling parties. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK ... and the KDP ... both have women’s groups. And what is the job of these women’s groups? It is to provide the list of honourless women to the authorities (in other words, a list of executions)....

For example, Fahima. She was a 38 years old woman in city of Dhouk. Her son of 18 years old was pressured into killing her. He took her to the outskirts of the city ... under the pressure of the ruling party KDP that had brainwashed him. For weeks and weeks. He just closed his eyes and he pulled the trigger. That’s the state that they put the people under. That is the part of Iraq that is so-called democratic and a major ally of US government. That is how the Americans plan to liberate the people of Iraq.

Who’s planning this liberation for the Americans, this liberation of Iraq? This is a suspicious political coalition; only I wouldn’t call it a political group, these are only individuals who represent themselves. Their name is the Iraqi National Congress, INC, they are full supporters of war against Iraq and also supporters of economic sanctions. They get upset when the war against Iraq is delayed, because they will be late in reaching to power. They had their conference in London a couple of months ago, and from that conference they have prepared an agenda for taking over in Iraq. And from that agenda they came up with a political committee, or in other words, a government in exile, that will be ruling in Iraq. This is a committee that is made of 65 people who are supposed to be representing all of Iraq. Out of 65 people, only 3 are women. And the other, amazing fact that I see is out of 65 people, 25 are from the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, which is a party funded by the Islamic Republic in Iran, they are Political Islam, that come with an agenda that will create another oppressive dilemma for women in Iraq; that will veil us [from]day number one. That will also push women’s achievements down the drain. This is the American scenario for the future of Iraq.

It also includes other parties in addition to this Political Islam group, there are previous generals that were assistants of Saddam Hussein. There is one individual Wafiq Al-Samara’i who is also supposed to take control of the future of Iraq. He has a major role in stopping the uprisings against Saddam in 1991, a process in which tens of thousands of people were killed. So he is one of the heroes of the genocide of Iraqi people, and he is going to reach for power under the American scenario. So it’s Political Islam, and criminal assistants of Saddam, in addition to a party of business men who guarantee that it will be an open market for the American interests. The head of which is Ahmed Chalabi, a corrupt banker who opened a bank in Jordan, and later on when there was no cover from the monies that he took from people, the bank had to be closed, and he had to flee outside the country, otherwise he would have gone to prison. His next project was to begin an Iraqi opposition party that is funding by the Americans, which he succeeded in, and they are supporting the American government for this war, and waiting to be handed the power in Baghdad. This is the future scenario led by the Americans.

Of course, this is not the full story. Their plan for Iraq is to divide it into ethnic federalism; in other words to divide Iraq into parts, north for Kurds, south for Shi’ites, central for Sunis, and there are some Assyrians that may be given a piece, in a scenario that has only one explanation: preparation for a future ethnic cleansing war. What happened in Kosovo is planned now for Iraq, under the American scenario.

This is something we need to talk about. This American scenario is not only against women, it is there to change Iraq into a big battlefield, in Baghdad and the north, to change it and divide it into ethnicities that will go killing each other. The Iraqi people are aware of this. They are working against it. The media covers only the pro-American Iraqi opposition, something that is outrageous for the Iraqi people.

Our vision for the future of Iraq, as I said, is a secular government that guarantees civil liberties and full equality among men and women, which is achievable only under socialism.

I would like here to end my presentation with an overview of what my group in the north of Iraq is doing. The Independent Women’s Organization (IWO)who we represent in this part of the world, have worked in the 90s, viciously, against the nationalist parties that were administering the honor killings. We approached other women’s groups; we activated them into refusing the current ceimes against women, we demonstrated on the streets. And when I say we, it’s the Independent Women’s Organization, supported by the Worker Communist Party of Iraq. The IWO had around 2000 women as members. They have demonstrated on the streets. They have changed the civil laws.

We have opened our women’s centre in the North of Iraq, that has up to date, saved 250 women from honor killings. We took 47 women into our shelter in the cases when we felt they had desperate cases. And when we couldn’t make them go out safe in the streets, we smuggled them to the borders and took them to the United Nations offices, and granted them refugee status. And some severe cases; I would like to mention here Kajal Khudur. She was a woman beaten so bad by her husband’s male relatives because she was thought of having a relationship with someone else. And the only reason they did not kill her, and this was thought of by the mullah, do not kill her because she was pregnant. We will wait until she has the baby, then we will kill her. So Kajal was beaten so bad, and as punishment against her....

I hate to mention these details, but, her nose was chopped off, and she was left half dead on the outskirts of her village. Our activists went to her, and took her to our shelter. We kept her there, and we did all the healing that we could do to her. But after she delivered the baby, we found out it was impossible for her to be safe on the streets, we took her to Turkey, we made her reach Europe, and from there to Canada. Now she lives in Toronto, in Scarborough, and has had two plastic surgeries. She almost looks normal. And her daughter is over five years old. [Applause] Our vision is that women should not bend down under the burden of religion, nationalism, tribalism, and Political Islam. Women should stand upright; we should be strong. We need to be ready for this coming period. We are beginning to organize, starting from the north where we can function better, and we will spread to the south, the center and the south. They cannot decide the future for Iraq that women will not have. For us, it is full equality, it is a secular government, it is a socialist government. That’s what we are working for. Honor killings cannot happen anymore; we are there against them, and the future for the others.

Of course, support of people like yourselves is great for us. And for that occasion, I would like to announce March 8, 2003, a day of solidarity with the women of Iraq. And solidarity against a very criminal war that is going to be launched against the people of Iraq. I thank-you very much for coming here today; And of course all your support will be appreciated, and is very much needed for our shelter in Iraq. Every dollar that you provide will be going for a woman who is in desperate need. Saving these women is the responsibility of all freedom lovers in the world, and I thank you again for coming here today.”

10 March 2003

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Yanar Mohammed and Defense of Iraqi Women’s Rights can be reached at:

5 Sunny Glenway, Unit #115

Toronto, ON M3C 2Z5

Telefax: (416) 724-7104

Email: yanar2002@hotmail.com